


Observer Effect

by livenudebigfoot



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Phone Sex, Skype, Voyeurism, absence makes the heart grow fonder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 22:51:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livenudebigfoot/pseuds/livenudebigfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finch is called out of town on a job and keeping in touch gets complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Observer Effect

He's kind of mad at himself for caring so much. 

Because, of course, they can't be together all the time. Fusco's a cop; Finch does whatever it is that Finch does. Fusco's got a kid to keep up with and Finch has whatever it is Finch fills his private life with outside their little vacations from responsible thinking. They don't exactly keep regular hours. They're chasing the second hands on two totally different clocks. So, yeah, there's going to be a few weeks out of the year where they don't have time for each other. Maybe even a few months. That's not a surprise. They knew that going in.

But dammit, it's so fucking tough.

"Difficult," is the way Finch puts it, "but completely necessary." His voice kind of oozes through the phone, heavy and backed by a yawn.

Fusco kicks off his shoes and abandons them by the door. "Anything I can help out with?" he asks as he struggles out of his coat.

"No, no. There's enough on your plate as it is. Besides, this is somewhat..." Finch pauses, sucks his teeth, rolls the words around in his mouth until he's satisfied they're smooth enough to not come out insulting, "...outside your area of expertise."

"Yeah, okay." Fusco loosens his tie, yanks it off over his head. "I can take a hint."

"Oh, stop that. There is no hint."

"I know." He loosens the collar of his shirt. "You still outside the country?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. Hopefully not for much longer. I miss the city terribly." There's the shift and murmur of blankets and sheets, and Fusco imagines Finch lying flat on his belly in bed. Maybe half asleep. Maybe with one hand creeping casually beneath his own body. "What about you?" Finch asks, jolting Fusco out of it. "How are your cases coming?"

"Ah, you know." Fusco tugs at his own belt buckle with a kind of casual urgency as he steps into his bedroom. "Close one case and another one opens. They're keeping me busy."

"Good. Be careful." That's the kind of thing Finch has been saying a lot since they stopped seeing each other as much. Like maybe he thinks Fusco's brain turned to mush without Finch around keeping him sharp and expanding his horizons or whatever the hell. Finch notices Fusco's discomfort in the quiet afterward and explains, "Perhaps I'm overly anxious about your safety. But it's much harder to watch over you from here."

"Creep," he says.

Finch brushes it off. "What are you doing now?"

"I'm just home from work," he says. He tugs roughly and the belt slips loose from his pants and he drops it in an unceremonious coil on the floor. He drops himself in an even less dignified heap on the bed. "Letting my hair down. You?"

"Oh, it's very, very early in the morning," Finch says. "Surveillance."

"Slacker."

"He's  _asleep_ ," Finch says primly.

"Jesus Christ, Glasses. You  _are_ a creep."

"I'm in a hotel room," Finch continues, "as I have been for the bulk of the trip. And I am very bored."

There's an anticipatory tremble in the silence that follows. Fusco undoes the button on his pants. "Yeah?" he says. 

"Mmhmm." He hears Finch shifting around again. "It's very, very warm where I am. The heat is...oppressive. Heavy. Wet. You know."

Fusco swallows. "Yep."

"When I arrived, I was wearing a summer suit, in anticipation of some field work I'd be doing, but I'm afraid it hasn't happened so I've just been discarding it, layer by layer, over the course of the afternoon."

"Well, yeah. Logical."

"It's only in the early morning, now, that I've been able to find any relief. Beautiful, soft light over the bed. Sweat cooling on my skin. It's really the first time in days that I've felt like I could stand to be touched.

"Mmhmmmph."

"What are you wearing," Finch asks, "right now?"

Fusco squints blearily down the length of his body: his shirt rumpled and half open, his pants hastily yanked down just under his hips, all of it smelling like sweat and bad coffee and other people's cigarettes. He lets his hand slip beneath the waistband of his underwear.

"Not a goddamn stitch," he says.

 

* * *

 

"Not yet," Finch whispers.

Fusco takes a deep breath and forces his grip to relax, forces his touches to be light. He keeps on stroking himself in the rhythm that Finch set, slow and inexorable, base to tip and tip to base and back up again. It's all too slick, too wet to gain any real friction. Too much lotion wells and pearls between his fingers.

"Not yet."

" _Fuck_."

"Not yet."

Fusco whines, long and loud and high-pitched and fucking humiliating. His hips jerk forward and he forgets to pull his hand back and the sudden, fast stroke makes him shudder and buckle. "'M gonna come," he mutters into a pillow. "If I don't stop, I'm gonna come."

"Shhh. Keep going. You can do this."

He shivers, breathes out hard through his nose, and goes through the motion again. Nice and slow, up and down, soft and light and fuck, it's torture. It's torture because he's  _not_ about to come, he's just teetering painfully on the edge and Finch won't let him fall.

"Please," he whispers.

"Keep going. Just a little longer. You're so close."

"So close," Fusco whispers to himself.

"So close," Finch repeats. "Lionel?"

He whimpers.

"Lionel, I'm going to count backwards from five, and then you're allowed. Are you ready?"

He practically sobs, "Yes."

"Five..."

God, it aches. It's the smoothest, slowest, slickest slide imaginable but it aches so bad. He wishes he was allowed to speed up the pace, to squeeze hard, to do anything but this gentle, lazy tease, to just come already. God, his cock is so wet and he can't even tell what's lotion and what's precome anymore and he's straining.

"Fffffour..."

He'd accuse Finch of drawing it out on purpose but Fusco thinks it's probably just Finch stumbling over words, stammering in the way he does when he's all red-faced and sloppy and desperate and fuck, that's not helping at all. Fusco shouldn't be having this much trouble. He's played this game before, a bunch of times, and it's always  _kind of_  torture, but never like this. Then again, every other time, Finch was here with him, fucking him or holding him or petting his hair. God, he misses Finch. Fusco grabs a handful of his own inner thigh and squeezes, digs his nails in. Finch would be against it, but the sharp crescents of his fingernails might draw him back from the edge.

"Thr..." and that's all Finch gets out before the sharp points of pain in his thigh provide just the right kind of contrast and Fusco is coming over his hand with a yelp.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, curled in a knot and twitching through every last bump as his orgasm is dragged out of him, "sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, sorry."

Finch gasps in short, uneven bursts. After a few seconds, Fusco realizes he's coming too.

Quietly, they collect themselves. "That was not..." Finch pants, "precisely on point, but I think that may have been simultaneous. Was it?"

"I dunno," Fusco says, "you're always so quiet."

"Hmmm."

Fusco kicks his pants the rest of the way off, so he's just lying there on the bed in his shirt and his socks, watching his dick go soft. He feels all wrung out, but unsatisfied, like there's still something in him that's gone untouched and unsullied. "When're you coming back?" he asks.

"Not sure," Finch says. "Certainly a week more. We'll have to see after that."

He groans.

"I know," Finch says.

"Just hurry back, man. I'm getting way too familiar with my right hand."

"I know the feeling."

"You know," Fusco says, "if you wanted to...keep an eye on me. I mean. I would. That would be weird. But I wouldn't mind it for the next week or whatever. If it'd make you feel better. Less bored."

Finch is deathly quiet.

"So, I guess what I'm getting at is, if you want to stick cameras in my bedroom or my shower or something, just so you have something to watch until you get back...that's OK. I could be alright with that."

He hears the click of Finch's wet mouth. "Would that make  _you_ feel better, Lionel? Less bored?"

Fusco thinks for a moment, feels that peculiar twist in his gut that comes along with Finch, sickening and exhilarating. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, why not? I'm kinda surprised you haven't already. You haven't, have you?"

"No." There's a guilty tinge to it. Not like he did it and he's lying, but like he's thought about it long and hard and now he's ashamed.

"Well. I mean. Why not try it?"

"Why not," echoes Finch.

"So, you want me to pick something up?"

"No, of course not. Nothing personal," he says over Fusco's protests, "but Detective, this is  _my_ area of expertise." Finch makes a rich, thoughtful sound. "Keep an eye on your mailbox over the next day or so. I'll have the relevant equipment overnighted."

"Whoa. You're not jumping into this a little quickly?"

"No, of course not, Lionel." There's a flurry of clicks and keyboard strokes, the sound of plans being made. "This is a  _wonderful_ idea."

 

* * *

 

Fusco sits amid a sea of open boxes, Styrofoam and cameras peeking out. "So where do you want these?"

"Did you see my note?"

Fusco did see the note. It was inside the box, printed in impersonal block letters on the order form. It said, "Place wherever you're most comfortable."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I saw it. But there are like ten cameras here and don't know where to put them. I guess the bed's a given."

"Yes, please," Finch says. "A few angles, if you're amenable."

"Sure. But that still leaves us a fuckton of cameras."

"Seven."

"Yeah. A fuckton."

"Well, you might pick a few areas in your apartment where you often relax. It needn't be specifically sexual."

"Yeah, but it is, though."

Finch sighs. "Nothing gets past you." 

"Come on, smartass," Fusco says. "This is your wheelhouse, not mine."

"Very well." There's the sound of movement, maybe Finch rubbing hard at the side of his face. "One fixed on your couch, if you don't mind."

"Nah, I don't."  _If you wanna watch me watch TV, that's fine by me, you little weirdo._

"And in your kitchen as well."

"You wanna watch me eat?"

"I want to watch you cook."

"Oh." Finch has his share of hangups and this is maybe the one Fusco understands the least, because it's not even a sex thing, exactly. He just likes watching Fusco throw a meal together. Not like Fusco's a chef in anyone's estimation. But he guesses Finch never cooks at all. All restaurant food and instant for him, and Fusco kind of likes that because it means that home cooking is one of a few areas where Fusco's got a leg up on Finch. Finch kind of likes it too, he guesses.

"Just so you know, I'm probably not cooking this week," he says.

Finch's tongue clicks sympathetically. "Too tired?"

"Most of the time."

"That's fine," Finch says. "Only, leave the camera there anyway. It can't hurt."

"Sure." Fusco picks through the cameras, examining. "Anything else?"

"No other specific requests, no. Place as many as you like in whatever configurations you like."

"Alright. I'll do that. So, uh, I notice this one's waterproof."

Tense silence. "That is the case, yes."

"Stands to reason," Fusco continues, "that you were kind of hoping I'd stick it someplace where it'd be exposed to water."

"That would be a reasonable conclusion to come to."

"So..." he says, "not the kitchen sink?"

"If that's where you'd prefer to put it."

"You know, maybe I will."

"Whatever you want."

Fusco rubs at his eyes. "Look, don't be shy about it. Where in the shower do you want this thing?"

Finch keeps an uncomfortable, thoughtful silence. "Which way do you face?"

 

* * *

 

The first time it happens, he's sprawled out on the couch watching the game and suddenly, a light comes on. Or maybe it's been on a while, he's not sure. All he knows is that during a commercial break, the corner of his eye snags on a tiny pinprick of red light on the camera he stuck on a tripod next to the arm of his couch.

Disarmed, he waves to it.

His phone warbles.

"You enjoying the show?" he asks.

"Not particularly," Finch says. "The Knicks are off to a terrible start this season."

"Right? What the hell?"

"Atrocious."  Finch clears his throat. "Do something for me?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Turn on that light? The one at the other end of the couch?"

Fusco cranes backwards over the arm, turns the knob twice until dim, yellow light floods over him. "Good?" he asks, staring into the lens.

"I'm not sure. Go back to where you were." 

Fusco scoots back into position with his head propped up on a pillow and his legs stretched out toward the camera.

"Yes," Finch sighs. "Very good."

Fusco settles, tucks the phone in close to his face and plucks sleepily at the waistband of his jeans. "You want me to...?"

"Not necessarily."

"Oh."

"I mean, if you're in the mood for it..."

"Eh..."

"You just seemed very relaxed."

"I..." He lets his hand fall over his eyes. "Yeah, I'm dog-tired," he admits.

"Then by all means," Finch says, "just tell me about your day."

"Yeah? Just so you know, it's not, uh, riveting or anything."

"Believe me when I say that I've been riveted enough for one day."

 

* * *

 

He definitely said he wasn't making any dinner this week, but he's got his head in the freezer, trying to figure out which box of frozen depression to heat up, when he notices the camera on his counter is awake. And the hell with it. Why not? He's tired, maybe, and hungry, but the food in his fridge is just gonna go bad if he doesn't do something with it. Might as well.

He brings rice in water to boil in a pot on the stove, brings the temperature down as the first bubbles burst on the surface. Satisfied, he moves on, rolls a fat red tomato onto the cutting board and dices it into soft pieces and wet, glistening seeds. Then green onions, the stalks chopped into papery rounds and the white part diced to small, translucent pieces.

There are two eggs left in the carton, so that’s perfect if they haven’t gone bad. He checks, drops them into a bowl of water and watches them loll on the bottom. Still good enough. He cracks both in a bowl, worries with a fork, adds oil, salt, pepper, and the pearly white pieces of onion. He cooks the eggs in a skillet on the stove until they’re just barely done, soft and pale yellow and moving in smooth curds before the pass of his wooden spoon. He sets the eggs aside, cooks tomatoes with vinegar and sugar until they’re deep brown-red and near-formless. Then he puts the eggs back in, mixes until they mingle wetly with the tomatoes. He doesn’t have cornstarch, throws in flour and water instead to absorb the liquid.

Over rice, it’s not a bad meal. Better than what it would have been if he’d just heated something.

“Thank you,” Finch says to him sweetly.

Fusco’s doing dishes and playing Springsteen for background noise. Up to his elbows in dishwater, he chuckles. “What for?”

“You changed your plans.”

“Ahhhh, it’s nothing. Just saw you watching. Figured you might as well get your money’s worth.”

“I already get my money’s worth.”

“Yeah? How so?”

It’s a strange silence that follows, hesitant and shifting and excited, somehow. “In the mornings,” Finch says, “first thing, when you come into the kitchen and start the coffee percolating. You’re very tired and very clumsy, and your eyes are a bit puffy and wet. Sometimes you wear glasses.” He swallows. “Or nothing but an old shirt and your underwear, and you’re all chilled from the morning cold. And your hair is mussed.” Finch sighs. “I don’t see your bare legs often enough.”

He feels the blush all the way down to his chest. “You’re screwing around with me,” he says.

“I assure you, I am not.”

“That why you wanted the kitchen cam, Finch? To check out my legs?”

“No, not initially,” Finch says. “That’s just been a very enjoyable side effect.” He clears his throat. “That meal you made. A Chinese standard, am I correct?”

“It’s Chinese, yeah. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it at a Chinese restaurant, though.”

“No, it doesn’t often make an appearance in American Chinese restaurants. Who taught you?”

“Dunno.” Fusco slots a plate into the drying rack. “Just picked it up somewhere.”

 

* * *

 

He's rinsing his hair in the shower and when he lifts his head, there's that light again, looking down at him, and yeah, he jumps. Humiliating, maybe, seeing as he was the one who installed it there, but it's definitely taking some getting used to. Getting spied on while he's on the couch is one thing, but Finch doesn't even do the couples' shower thing with Fusco when he's there in person. Finch gets his own shower, with his own froofy-yet-somehow-masculine shampoo and body wash that Fusco's taken to borrowing since Finch left on his trip. Finch covets that alone time.

And yet, there he is in spirit, peeking down at Fusco from behind the shower head. Fusco tries to kind of cut the camera out of the process and picture Finch, wherever he is right now. Someplace safe - or safe enough - or he wouldn't be watching at all. Someplace private, too, for the same reason. A hotel room or a rented apartment or some flophouse in an overheated, far-off country. Somewhere halfway around the world, where it's already the small hours of the morning and Finch is probably puffy-eyed and wild-haired and blinking tired at the screen. Just barely awake but tuned into Fusco.

He goes over his body with soap and a washcloth around three times more than he needs to, lathering up and rinsing off over and over again until his skin's pink and glowing and he feels smooth. He feels good, soft and alluring, like something Finch might desperately wish he could touch from thousands of miles away. Fusco tries to keep being that for a long while, under the spray of the shower.

When he steps out of the shower, he takes care to stay within the camera’s sight. He pulls the plastic curtain way back, winces when he realizes that he’s also unveiling the mess that his bathroom’s in, the yellowed tile and the messy counter and the laundry scattered on the floor, but it doesn’t matter. If Finch is looking at all of that stuff instead, there’s something wrong with him. Fusco dries himself carefully, inch by inch, paying particular, indulgent attention to his calves and his thick thighs, ‘cause now Fusco knows a little something. He's fluffing his wet hair with the towel when his phone goes crazy. He lets it go a little while, makes sure he's nice and dry before he goes to answer.

“Anything I can help you with?” he asks.

"Bed," Finch whispers hoarsely. "Bed, please, now, please."

"Thanks for asking nicely.” Fusco takes some pains to sound unhurried, but he kind of hurls himself into the sheets on pure instinct, narrowly missing one of the tripods arranged around the bed.

Because yeah, there are a few cameras pointed toward the bed now, one on each side and one at the foot of the bed and one mounted above the head looking down. It’s all, Fusco understands, _wired_ for sound.

So far, they’ve mostly just watched silently while Fusco jerks off fast and rough or sleeps or just tries to sleep, staring back into the black, unwinking lenses for hours at a time. He feels guilty. He hasn’t been the show Finch wanted him to be.

Fusco yanks off the towel that’s loosely wound around his hips and throws it onto the floor in a wet, fluffy heap. He puts the phone to his ear again. “What next, boss?”

He hears Finch swallow. “Could you…do you suppose you could…?”

“Spit it out.” His hand lingers on the top of his thigh near his dick in anticipation.

Finch hesitates, teeters on the edge of what he’s about to say, and Fusco knows before the first syllable makes its escape from his mouth that it’s going to be something broad and un-Finchlike. “…Would you be so kind as to play with your ass for me, Lionel?”

Okay, so broad and extremely Finchlike. You can’t call ‘em all.

Fusco sets the phone down beside his head, twists on the bed and grapples the drawer of his nightstand open, grabs the sleek black pump bottle of lube that he once price-checked online and now the sight of it makes him vaguely ashamed. He pumps once, twice, onto the tips of his fingers, rubs it around with his thumb to get them all slick. He lifts one leg, runs a wet snail trail down his belly, past his dick, down to his asshole. He presses lubed-up fingers right up against it but doesn’t try to stick them in yet, just rocks them back and forth there. Like, hey, get ready. I’m going in.

“Just give me a second,” he grunts, digging fingers in behind his knee and pulling it further up, so the top of thigh is crushed against his belly.

Finch is momentarily silent. “Take your time,” he says, finally.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Very.” Finch lets out a small, satisfied sigh as Fusco keeps on rubbing at himself, letting the first section of one digit slide in and out like a test. “Lionel?”

“Mmmh?”

“May I ask a personal question?”

“I’m letting you watch me finger myself on camera. Ask away.”

“Do you…” He hesitates. “Lionel, do you ever…do you ever do this when I’m not around?”

“What?”

“Is this something you’d do to yourself if you were alone? For your own…pleasure?”

“I. Yeah. Sometimes.”

Almost never. For a long time, it was something he didn’t know he wanted, so he never touched. Then he figured out that yeah, okay, maybe he did want it, so he almost never touched again because that was a reminder that he wasn’t quite normal, that he liked the wrong things.

Finch couldn’t erase that kind of thing, not completely, but he went a long way toward making it better. Finch touched a lot and he made it seem simple and natural and nice and he’d praise Fusco for taking Finch’s fingers or his cock or a toy so well, very well, and with Finch, Fusco found it pretty easy to lose himself in good feelings, soft touches.

That’s tougher to do alone.

Besides, he thinks fiercely as he eases his middle finger into himself up to the second knuckle, jerking off makes you come faster anyway.

“Show me?” Finch asks. “Show me what you’d do if you were alone?”

Fusco never really thinks of Finch as having a way with people, aside from being well-mannered and having a lot of cash, which is the best way with people. But there’s something about the way he talks to you. He’s not quite charming and he’s too intense and unnerving to put you anywhere near at ease. He’s too interested in people. When he asks about you, it’s like you’re under the microscope, like he wants to know every inch of your skin and then peel it back to see what’s underneath. It’s not a way with people, exactly, it’s just piercing, wriggling, earnest interest, and it’s scary as hell in a way that makes you want to hide from him and tell him your life story all at once.

 Fusco kinda loves it. Pathetic, but he’s never known anybody to give that much of a damn about every tiny piece of him.

It’s enough to make a guy invent a whole personal history of assplay just to keep Finch happy.

He starts a slow in and out with just the one finger, getting himself all trained up and used to the idea. Doesn’t take that long; he and Finch have been doing this kind of thing for a while now so if Fusco keeps reminding himself that somewhere, maybe on the other side of the world, Finch is watching, it’s a really easy thing to do.

He tightens the one-armed hug around his thigh, pulls it tight down over his belly and keeps right on going. Somewhere Finch is watching. He’s in front of a screen somewhere, blinding blue-white light playing harsh over his face. His eyes are all wide behind his glasses and Fusco bets he’s got a blush going, one that looks like a heated dark bruise on both cheeks because Finch’s skin is so pale. Maybe he’s touching himself, maybe he’s got a hand down the front of his designer drawers or a finger in his own ass or maybe Finch is imagining that he’s the one doing the fucking right now. Or maybe not. Maybe he’s just got his chin in his hand and a flat, slightly stupid smile on his face and a hard-on he’s pretending doesn’t exist for just a while. Beautiful.

Fusco presses a second finger inside himself and starts to just kind of beckon, curling fingers inside himself and pressing up, searching. Not quite aroused enough yet, so he cheats a little, gives his cock a few slow, teasing strokes until it starts to thicken.

“When you do this to yourself,” Finch asks, sounding a little bit frazzled, a little bit dreamy, “do you ever pretend it’s…someone else doing it to you? Or do you just enjoy the sensation for what it is?”

Has to be, he thinks so quickly it startles him. Has to be somebody else doing it to him. The violation, the pushing in and the claim it stakes, that’s what’s good about something like this. Somebody deep inside him, where they’re not supposed to be, pushing in deeper and owning him. With Stills, it was always a rough thing, a “Lionel, you fuckup, I own you,” thing and with Finch it’s a lot gentler, a “Lionel, you fuckup, I’ll own you if you want me to” thing. Both were good, for their time. Finch is better, though. Finch is a whole lot better, in hindsight.

He beckons again, feels a jolt pass through him and his dick jump to attention against his palm. _Oh_ , he thinks, releasing his grip on his cock and letting it stand on its own, _that’ll do it._

With a dry mouth, he says, “Feels pretty good on its own. But I’m thinking about you.”

He can hear the trembling breath Finch takes. “Oh?”

“Yep.” Fusco picks up the pace, feels himself stretch to accommodate. “Thinking about what we’re gonna do when you’re back in the city again. When are you coming back?”

“Soon,” Finch sighs. He’s one step from a whimper. “Oh, Lionel, soon.”

“Soon,” Fusco repeats, and he clings to the word with his teeth. _Soon soon soon_ , he thinks to the slick, fast sounds of his own fingers fucking into him. “What’re you gonna do to me soon?”

Finch makes this _noise_ , one Fusco’s never heard him make anything like before. It’s a low, rumbling sound from somewhere deep in his little pigeon chest and it makes the hairs on the back of Fusco’s neck stand up. “Are we making plans?”

“Sure,” Fusco pants, rolling his hips a little with every inward thrust.

“As soon as I’m finished with this project, may I have permission to come collect you? Wherever you are; at home, at work, wherever.”

“Yeah,” Fusco mumbles brainlessly, “do it, please, do it,” even as some part of him points out that Finch should be nowhere near work.

“I know such things are not exactly in line with my usual security protocols, but I miss you terribly,” Finch murmurs.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Finch sighs and it’s long and broken by the beginnings of laughter, like it’s such a relief to say. “What I wouldn’t give to be at home with you right now, on your broken, terrible mattress. I don’t…I don’t even know what I’d do to you right now. Maybe nothing. Maybe all I’d be able to do is lie beside you and feel the heat off your skin.”

He’s starting to worry but his hand is still going, fingers grinding relentlessly against his prostate, precome beading at the slit of his cock and dribbling eagerly down, skin red and slick with sweat and Fusco doesn’t know how long he’s been like this, doesn’t know how he got like this just from imagining Finch back home and beside him.

“Want you,” he mumbles. He feels the muscles in his back tighten and arch, feels heat and urgency pooling at the bottom of his belly.

Finch makes kind, soothing sounds. “Soon.”

“Soon,” and then he’s a tight circle, a bending arc, and he’s coming in fits and starts over his palm and his thigh and there’s a cramp in his leg and he doesn’t want it to stop.

He falls back onto his broken, terrible mattress with a moan and a creak of springs. Finch is panting in his ear, working through his own fits and starts on the other side of the world. Fusco turns his head, rests his cheek against the phone.

“Are you still there?” Finch asks, after he’s recovered enough to sound calm and unbothered again.

“Yeah.” But he’s almost asleep.

“I wish I could have taken you with me.” Finch is rustling around, adjusting blankets and pillows. “Not that our project isn’t going well; I’m just spending an awful amount of time locked in a hotel room and there are very few things I wouldn’t give for a…a companion.”

Fusco snorts. “A travel-size sex toy.”

“A _companion_ ,” Finch insists, rather firmly. “Really, Lionel, how energetic do you think I am? This may surprise you but I happen to enjoy your company as well.”

“You’d get sick of that too.”

“Never.” There’s a small wet sound and Fusco thinks that maybe Finch just gave his phone a kiss, just a sweet little peck, like a princess might give a frog.

They’re both a little embarrassed by that.

 

* * *

 

And then Finch is busy for a few days.

Fusco’s glad. If Finch is busy, that means he’s getting things done. If he’s getting things done, he’ll be home sooner.

Fusco wants him home now.

It’s not usual for them. Even when Finch is here in town, they can go weeks and months without a moment to themselves and this is no different.

Except it is.

Because Fusco always knows that even if they don’t have time for each other, Finch is somewhere in the city, and maybe they meet in passing or they work together on something and they don’t have time to get into it, but they can still look and talk, or even touch if they’re subtle about it or no one’s around. That’s something. That’s a little something to brighten your day.

The lights on the cameras still come on from time to time, never for very long. Finch is just checking in on him and it seems he doesn’t have the time for anything more. That’s fine. Fusco doesn’t really have the time for it either.

He’d rather hold off a while, get the real thing sooner.

 

* * *

 

He wakes to a chiming phone and three red, staring pinpricks in the dark.

“What time is it?” Fusco groans into the phone.

“Late, very late. I’m so sorry,” Finch whispers, smooth and placating. “You can go back to sleep soon, I promise.”

“Why’m I awake _now_?” Fusco demands.

“I’m back in New York.”

He’s upright in seconds, propped up on one elbow and groggily rubbing at his eyes. “What? When?”

“I got in a few hours ago.”

Fusco squints around in the darkness of his bedroom like he’s hoping Finch is going to emerge from a corner. “What the hell’s taking you so long?”

“More work to be done,” Finch says. He sounds like he’s saying it through his teeth, like he is forcing a smile. “Something came up.”

“You need my help?” asks Fusco as he draws the covers back, ready to hop out of bed and put some pants on if he needs to.

“Not…not exactly. I need. Ah. I need motivation.”

“…What?”

“I need…” Finch clears his throat. “I’ve been awake for a very long time, Lionel.”

“Mmhm.”

“There’s so little left to do and I just want to come to your apartment and get some sleep.”

“I’d like that,” Fusco mumbles. He lets himself fall back onto the pillows.

“But I can’t do it yet. And I just wanted to see you. Hear your voice. Remind myself of what’s waiting for me when I finish.” He swallows. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

Fusco nods slowly, lifts his hips and starts to shift his underwear down. “’S okay,” he says. “You wanna make it up to me?”

Finch’s voice trembles. “Of course.”

“I wanna see you.”

“You can’t,” Finch says apologetically. “Not yet. I have to…”

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Fusco lets the elastic waistband of his boxers rest below his hips and above his dick, lets his fingertips trace the spot busily. “I want to see you like you see me. Wherever you are right now.”

Finch hesitates. “This is a secure location…” he begins.

“Yeah, I don’t care about figuring out where you are. I just want to see you for once. Doesn’t have to be for long.”

Finch makes thoughtful sounds, hemming and hawing. “It’s all been rather one-sided, hasn’t it?” he says.

“Yup.”

“I wish you’d said something earlier. I’m sure we could have arranged something. It needn’t have been that way.”

“’S alright. I didn’t realize I wanted it until just now. Besides, I don’t think, uh.” Fusco shifts in bed, pulls his underwear down that little bit more. “I don’t think I need it the way you need it. To be able to look, I mean. Mostly, I’m alright just knowing you’re around.”

“That’s very sweet, Lionel.” He sounds like he’s honestly touched.

“I don’t mean to be.”

“I suppose it won’t hurt,” Finch says, deep in thought. ”Just know that I may have to disconnect suddenly. I’m not. Er. I’m not precisely alone.”

_“What?”_

“I mean, I am right now,” Finch quickly covers, “but that could change quite suddenly. Mr. Reese doesn’t always telegraph his comings and goings, and Miss Shaw is even worse. So we may be…interrupted. Oh, don’t do that.”

Fusco continues pulling the sheets up to his throat. “Jesus _Christ_ , Finch. I get enough shit from those guys. I don’t need that.”

“Don’t worry; I’m perfectly confident in my ability to hide any compromising footage of you before either Reese or Shaw have the opportunity to glance at my screen. It’s my own…ah, state I’m worried about.”

“…Finch?”

“Well, I’m not…I mean to say…I’m not _stingy_ , Lionel.”

“No.” Fusco feels numb. “No, I’d never call you something like that.”

“You’ve been remarkably generous with me these past couple of months and it seems only right that I should...return the favor.” Fusco can hear the rustle of his tie being jerked loose. “Do you have Skype installed on your personal computer?”

“No, I don’t. Listen…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Finch says. “I’ll set it up remotely. Just go get your laptop and bring it to bed.”

“You know, if somebody could walk in on you any second, you don’t have to do anything. I mean, I’m home alone when I do it, you know? I got nothing to worry about.”

Finch pauses. “Well, I know I don’t _have_ to.” He sounds vaguely put out.

“You want to?”

“I do.”

“Well,” Fusco says. “Well, okay then.”

It’s a mad scramble to get to the living room, where his laptop is waiting on the coffee table.

“Mind you, I do have to stay mostly clothed,” Finch says, voice all strange and tinny from the speakerphone.

“That’s fine,” Fusco murmurs as he gathers up the cord.

“The risk of interruption is very real and I need to be able to, ah…”

“Zip up?” Fusco suggests.

“You know, there’s nothing particularly untoward about that phrase, but something about the way you say it is vulgar.”

Fusco walks back to his bedroom, sets the laptop down on the mattress. “I do my best. You want me to turn this thing on?”

“Mm?”

“The computer, Finch.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.”

He waits while the computer fan roars and the little screen flickers to life and Finch bitches and moans about how long it’s taking. And then Finch says, “Lie down, Lionel. It may be a while.” So Fusco lies down in the dark while the cursor skitters around the screen of its own accord while Finch downloads and sets up, and white light flickers and plays over his skin and he lazily traces the paths he wishes Finch’s hands were taking right now, down over his belly and his hips and his legs.

And then Finch takes forever.

“You done yet?” he asks.

“It takes a minute,” Finch snaps testily. “Just wait.”

The program comes to life with loud, obnoxious bloop.

“What the hell is that?”

“That’s the sound it makes.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Finch confesses. “Here, I’ll call you, just wait a moment…”

And then it’s playing a jaunty, blooping tune at him and Fusco’s annoyed already.

“How do I…”

“The icon shaped like a video camera,” Finch says, patiently.

Fusco hits it and yeah, that shuts it up real good. The screen flickers, darkens, and then there’s a hum of static and background noise and he’s looking at Finch.

It takes the air out of him. Fusco rolls over onto his belly to cover for it, peers closely at him.

The picture isn’t perfect and the light is low but it’s enough to see how drawn and pale Finch is, the shadows beneath his eyes and the matching shadow high up on his temple.

He’s smiling helplessly.

“Hello,” Finch says.

“Hey.” Fusco taps his own forehead. “What’s this?”

“Oh!” Finch seems a little like he forgot the bruise was there. “Just a small incident while in the field. Nothing serious.”

“Hurts?”

“Only barely. Why, how does it look?”

“Like it hurts.”

“It doesn’t. I promise.”

Fusco figures he’s probably lying a little, but lets it slide. He crosses his arms in front of him and rests his chin on them, just drinks it in a little. Finch’s suit’s a little rumpled. The collar of his shirt is slightly twisted and upturned in places and his tie dangles loose around his neck. If he squints, Fusco can see the pale stain of coffee on the cuff of Finch’s shirtsleeve.

Finch doesn’t drink coffee, usually.

Finch also doesn’t usually look this uncomfortable. He’s shifting from side to side, squirming under Fusco’s stare, and Fusco realizes that Finch isn’t used to being looked at.

“What?” Finch asks, nervously.

“Nothing. How much do you think you can take off and get away with it?”

Finch’s face colors. “Not…not too much.”

“Okay. You wanna lose the tie?”

Finch reaches up, tugs eagerly on one end and lets the whole thing slide from around his neck.

“There you go. You wanna loosen up the top two buttons on your shirt too?”

Finch gets on that, unbuttons his shirt with shaky fingers.

“Actually…one more?”

Finch complies. A pale wisp of chest hair peeks free. Finch looks visibly calmer.

“Are you always this buttoned up when we do this?”

“Not always.”

“But a lot?”

He hesitates. “Often, I only want to check in on you.”

“What, like you’re just looking in and then…”

“Well,” he says, “well, you are there. And…sometimes it gets away from me.”

“You should work on that,” Fusco suggests.

Finch doesn’t actually have anything to say to that, but his facial expression says “How _dare_ you” clearly enough.

Fusco’s just happy to see it for once. “Untuck your shirt.”

Finch pulls the tails of his shirt out of the front of his pants, immediately starts work on unbuttoning those too.

“Hey,” Fusco says, “who said you could do that?”

Finch stops, looks up guiltily.

Fusco waves him on. “I’m kidding. You sure you can?

“I think if I just unbutton and I leave everything else on…”

“That’ll work,” Fusco agrees. “Or, I guess it works if you say it will. What happens if Reese comes in while you’re like that?”

Finch’s skin goddamn blossoms with little blotches of heat.

“ _Christ_ ,” Fusco murmurs.

“I really don’t want that to happen,” Finch says, “it’s just…”

“Yeah. Alright. You wanna…?”

“Get started.” Finch nods. “Yes.” He fumbles with the front of his pants.

It takes some angling of the camera, some slouching on Finch’s part to get most of himself in frame, but he manages it, because when Finch asked “Up or down,” Fusco said, “I like both,” and Finch isn’t exactly the eager to please type but there are a few people in the world who he likes to see happy and Fusco, he guesses, is one of them.

He’s pretty proud of that.

Finch’s grip around himself is very firm and neat, neither a tight, desperate squeeze nor a lazy, teasing touch. He just soothes himself like that, with clean, smooth, efficient stroke. Finch leans far back into his slouch, hips pushed forward, eyes heavy-lidded as he gazes into the camera.

“Do me a favor?” Fusco asks.

“Nnnh?”

“Push up your shirt? Just a little.”

Finch’s eyebrows shoot up but he does it, shoves the front of his once-crisp dress shirt up until Fusco can see the gentle rise of his stomach, lightly dusted with hair and tensing, now and then, as Finch touches himself.

“Thanks.” Fusco lets one hand come down to reach beneath his body, to curl around his dick and coax it to hardness. Doesn’t take much convincing. “You know what you were asking me last time? About how I like to touch myself?”

Finch makes a gentle, throaty sound and turns his face to push into the desk chair.

“Well, I mean…” Fusco starts to rub gently against his fingers, his palm, the low thread count sheets on his bed. “I know it’s not like you can cut loose right now, but if you could, if you were alone and you didn’t have to worry about anybody walking in…”

A high-pitched whine from Finch.

“…what would you do to yourself?”

Finch lets his eyes slip shut, lets his lower lip creep between his teeth while he ponders the question, really seriously, like it’s important. “I would take my time,” he says, carefully. “I’m so busy and when I get the opportunity, I like these things to….to last. For as long as they can.”

“Sure,” Fusco encourages. “You’re a busy guy. You deserve that.”

“So I think I’d draw a bath. Have a glass of wine. Disrobe. Get myself very, very…relaxed.”

“Sure. ‘S what you need.” Fusco pushes down against his bed and he’s sure Finch knows what he’s doing, sure because of how Finch’s eyes darken and widen. “You, ah. You just touch your dick, or…?”

“No,” Finch says. “No, not just that. It’s, ah. It’s whatever I feel like having. Sometimes I, ah…”

“How many fingers,” Fusco asks, “can you put in your ass at once?”

Finch turns bright red with a gasp. “ _Detective_!”

Fusco shrugs. “It’s a question.”

“…Three,” he murmurs. Finch has his eyes shut tight, his brows furrowed and his hand gripped around the base of his dick, just holding on. “But I’m sure I could do more if I…”

“Yes?”

“…I have a toy that I use.”

Fusco bucks hard into his palm.

“It’s, ah, substantial.”

“Jesus Christ,” Fusco whispers into the crook of his elbow.

“Would you like to see me use it someday?”

“Yeah.” He closes his eyes. “Yeah, yes, yes please.” He can feel his cock leaking desperately into his palm.

“I’d like to do that for you, Lionel,” he says. “I’d also like to use something like it on you. Is that something you might try, Lionel?”

“ _Please_.”

“Lovely.” Finch swallows. “I’ll look forward to that.”

“How do you do this?” Fusco whimpers into his arm. “This is torture.”

“Detective?”

“I want you,” he moans, “so bad.”

“Oh,” Finch gasps, “oh, soon, I promise.”

“Get your shit done,” Fusco mutters. “’Cause if I have to wait another day, I’m gonna track you down myself. What else do you do?”

“What?”

“To yourself. When you’re alone.”

“Oh! Ah.” Finch starts stroking himself again, slow and rhythmic. “When I need to…warm myself up, as it were, sometimes I’ll play with my nipples a little. While not touching anything else.”

“Sensitive?”

“Yes.” Finch’s face tenses for a moment as he draws something out. “Very.”

“Show me?”

His eyes flutter wide open. “What, now?”

“Yeah. Your shirt’s unbuttoned, just reach in and…”

He does. Reaches one hand in beneath the shirt, flutters the collar aside and very deliberately pinches himself and a change comes over his face. A really gorgeous openness. His eyes drop shut, his lips part, and the hand around his dick keeps right on going, a gentle rhythm.

“Keep going,” Fusco says.

The hand beneath the shirt twists, tweaks and Fusco thrusts into his palm with a grunt.

“You look real good right now, boss,” he mumbles, curses the clumsy words the second they come out of his mouth.

Finch smiles, a gentle, self-satisfied little curve of the mouth. Slowly, sweetly, his eyes open up.

And then he frowns, very sharply.

“What’s up?” Fusco asks.

Finch leans forward, squinting at the screen and, he notices, not at Fusco, which is kind of a relief. “That can’t be right,” Finch says under his breath.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” Finch says, distractedly. “Yes, I’m fine. Listen, I’m sorry to leave you right now but I think there’s just been a break in the case. You’d better not wait up for me.”

“I…what?”

“Goodnight!” Finch calls and then the window goes dark with a – Fusco thinks – mocking bloop.

He lies stunned for a moment, face down on the bed, dick still leaking into his palm, blinking at an empty chat window.

“You kidding me?”

Silence.

“Well, goodnight to you too, _Harold_ ,” he snarls as he rolls over onto his back, slightly viciously.

Still silence.

“You better be solving that case right now,” he growls at his own bedroom ceiling, “or I’m never letting you fuck me again.”

Not without significant reparations, anyway.

God, he really wants Finch to fuck him.

Fusco rolls over again with a sharp grunt, pushes his face into a pillow and wills himself into angry, fitful sleep.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up to the sheets being torn off him in one swift, clean motion, to smooth hands running from the bottoms of his feet to his ankles to his calves, to the backs of his thighs to his ass, where the hands squeeze tight and then just as suddenly let go.

Fusco grins into the pillow. “Thought you said not to wait up.”

He hears the sound of rustling fabric, of Finch’s jacket hitting the floor, of one of Finch’s shoes being kicked off and hitting the wall. “It was a better break in the case than I initially suspected.”

“So you’re all done?”

“All done,” Finch says. There’s a slightly triumphant finality to the way he says it that also says, “So you’re not allowed to be mad at me for leaving you with blue balls.”

Hell, Fusco isn’t mad. Not really. He doesn’t have a right to get mad about Finch having his priorities in order.

Finch’s hand falls on his calf and kind of caresses, gently. Fusco misses the weird callouses on his hands, the smooth, milky palms. It’s good to feel them again. “Let me look at you,” Finch pleads.

Fusco rolls onto his back again, sees Finch standing by the bed in his shirtsleeves, looking exhausted and shaky and fucking delighted. “You’re really here,” he murmurs groggily.

Finch just nods.

In seconds, Fusco is up on his knees, dragging Finch close and helping him fumble open the buttons and yank off his clothes and pressing his lips hard to Finch’s over and over again until they’re wet and puffy and well used, and by that point Finch is wearing his socks and his underwear, dragged down around his thighs, so Fusco just pulls him into bed.

They can’t keep their hands or their mouths off each other, it’s just been too long separate, too long looking at screens and waiting on phone calls and now they’re both here, for fucking once, and Finch has his hands on Fusco’s face and Fusco’s crushing Finch against him and beneath him and it’s just good to be here, real good.

Finch’s hand wraps tight around Fusco’s cock and Fusco leaves off mouthing at his nipples long enough to do the same for Finch and then it’s simple, it’s so simple. It’s the work of a few strokes, a few hard presses of mouths and soon they’re coming, foreheads knocked tight together, legs intertwined, and coming and coming and coming.

When he comes to again, Finch is pressing kisses to his forehead and Fusco is saying, “Didn’t you go to the tropics or something? You look like you’ve been in a basement for three weeks.” His skin is paler than ever, Fusco notes. Wasn’t just that camera, Finch’s belly and legs and face are all white and sickly.

“Essentially,” Finch says, sounding grim. “Although I’m afraid I fibbed about the location for the sake of both our imaginations. There’s nothing romantic about rural Finland this time of year.”

Fusco pictures Finch all curled up under a mound of blankets, watching Fusco back in New York and wishing they were both someplace warm and isn’t sure. “Surprised you’d even let me know that much,” Fusco says, tightening his arm around Finch.

“Yes. I’ve been rather too liberal with information today.” Finch rests his head against Fusco’s. “How much did you see of the room I was in?”

“Not much. It was kinda dark and the picture was lousy. Besides, I didn’t ask to see you so I could pick up some interior decorating tips, if you get me.”

“I do,” Finch says, leaning harder against him with a sigh.

He saw bookshelves. A lot of them. And big space. It looks kinda like a public library, except obviously it wasn’t one, or Finch wouldn’t have agreed to jerk off there. Whatever. It’s not important. Fusco doesn’t care to know where Finch works all day, and he doesn’t care to worry Finch with wondering if Fusco knows too much.

“How long can you stay?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” Finch says. “It depends on what comes up.”

“If nothing comes up?”

“I could imagine staying here for at least another day. Perhaps surprising you after work tomorrow, if I’m available.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Finch frowns, looks askance. “This is going to sound a bit silly, coming from me,” he says, “but do you think we might take down the cameras while I’m here? I hadn’t imagined them being so unnerving.”

He follows Finch’s gaze to the trio of cameras on tripods, keeping silent, creepy vigil over them while they curl together in bed.

“Yeah, that is pretty weird, now you mention it,” Fusco says.

Finch shivers. “I’m not certain I’d be able to sleep with them watching.”

Fusco shrugs. “You get used to it. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it but, uh. It was just you, you know?”

Finch smiles at him, plants a kiss on his forehead, and then backs off, looking expectant.

“You want me to get ‘em now?” Fusco asks.

“Please,” Finch says, “I’m so tired.”

“Fine.” He sits up in bed with a grunt, disentangles himself from Finch, who seems reluctant to let him go even though he was the one who asked Fusco to get up in the first place. He sets about dismantling them one by one. “Is it just how they look?”

“It just…” Finch pauses. “They do make you feel as though you’re being watched.”

“Yeah, but that’s you, usually. Who else do you think is watching?”

Finch doesn’t have an answer to that.


End file.
